Sauber has broken its silence on the Giedo van der Garde affair, confirming that talks will continue next week.

Thus far the parties only agreed that the Dutchman would not stand in the way of Felipe Nasr and Marcus Ericsson and cancel any impending legal action in Australia, so the situation remains very fluid.

A short statement said: “The Sauber F1 Team can confirm it has been able to agree with Mr. Giedo Van der Garde that he refrains from driving in the Australian Formula One Grand Prix so it can keep its original planning. The Sauber F1 Team, Mr. Van der Garde and his management will continue to have constructive talks in order to find a mutually acceptable solution. The Sauber F1 Team is here to race in the Australian Formula One Grand Prix and that is what the team is now focusing on. In the course of next week we will be able to give more information.”

I suspect that Marcel Boekhoorn will buy up the shares that Monisha Kaltenborn currently has. That way Giedo van der Garde’s father in law will have effective control over the sauber team with which he will guarantee that Giedo van der Garde will drive for sauber. I must say though that Giedo van der Garde and his lawyers have played a very smart game. By going to the Australian judge with under a week before the race, they have effectively forced them to act. Furthermore by doing this they also ensured themselves that, whatever the outcome of the courtcases would be, sauber would have to reply in whatever way possible. In my opinion the entire court case was a farce to try and buy out Monisha Kaltenborn. The timing was too perfect. Knowing they had a strong case there where only three real options for the sauber team to consider all of which would almost certainly meant that sauber would have gone bankrupt.

Yes indeed the plight of Sauber is proportional to the absence of any mitigating efforts on their side on record.

If this had been some bolt from the blue it wouldn’t have been dealt with so resoundingly firmly by the court.

It seems a lot of people want to give credence to the idea the van der Guard side are being especially clever, the implication being sneaky lawyer tricks afoot. I’d say the appearance is the opposite and I’ll keep a open mind to how fluid the consequences of this action may be in terms of secondary effects on the team and business.

Thanks to this blog and AC for providing the most factual reporting. I’ve rarely been so pleasantly surprised.